


Lover's Knot

by charie



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Post Fade kiss, Pre-Romance, Some Fluff, Some angst, a little bit of both
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-16 09:17:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7262074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charie/pseuds/charie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Inquisitor gives Solas a gift; he reminisces on it after his departure.</p><p>Not really much plot, just a headcanon event between my Inquisitor and everyone's favorite egg.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lover's Knot

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever fic, so constructive criticism is more than welcome! It's short and there's not much to it, but I would be grateful for any thoughts on it.

Adariel was crouched in the tall, dry grass of the Exalted Plains, holding a piece of twine up in the bright afternoon sun. Cole was beside her, the shade cast by his enormous hat darkening her face and turning her ivory hair gray.

"Half of a lover's knot, it would seem," she said, flattening it out in her palm. "The knot is incomplete. See the other half anywhere?"

Cole hunched over to dig through the cluster of rubble the two of them had been combing through for the better part of an hour while they rested on their way to Fort Revasan. At first glance it was little more than a pile of rocks, but at closer inspection one could see the broken pieces of statues and vases and the crumbling foundation of some kind of column.

"Nothing," Cole replied. He pulled his hands back, heedless of the dirt and dust that had stained the cuffs of his jacket. "It's just that one. Alone."

Solas watched with mild interest as Adariel crouched to help Cole dig for the bracelet's companion. The two of them always seemed to be preoccupied with something bordering on trivial; combing the grasses for bird feathers, collecting old letters and hand written poems from abandoned camps and cabins they stumbled upon, inspecting river banks for noteworthy rocks. The Inquisitor probably had drawers full of such keepsakes. Cassandra always seemed a tad irritated by their absentminded wandering, but Solas found something about it strangely amusing. Almost endearing, in a way.

"Well, it seems our pair of lovers was separated," Adariel concluded, standing up and brushing the dirt from her knees. A breeze picked up, lifting her braid and snapping it in the wind like a flag. She sputtered as loose strands of hair blew into her face.

"Pulled apart, crying, desperate for each other--"

"That's alright, Cole," Adariel interrupted, patting the boy's shoulder. "Let's afford them their privacy, why don't we?"

Cole nodded sullenly, brushing his fingers through the dust.

Solas turned his attention back down to his feet, where he'd been re-wrapping the leather bindings that protected the arches and heels of his feet from the ground. It was a tedious task, and if not done right could leave him walking on an awkward bump of uneven leather, but he'd done it so much by now that it was second nature to breathing and blinking. He paused as a shadow fell over him, and when he looked up, he met Adariel's eyes.

"Inquisitor. Did you need something?" After their scene in the Fade and the admittance of their feelings for each other, it had become difficult to maintain the cordial respect that had previously existed, and even more frustrating, he found himself frequently not wanting to. But they were all on duty now, even if there was no one around to see them.

Adariel gracefully folded her legs and sat down before Solas, a bit closer than was required for easy speaking. The arrows in her quiver, still strapped to her back, rattled with the movement. 

"The lover's knot got me thinking, Solas."

He froze. Was she going to ask about this now, with Cole and Cassandra within earshot? He'd told her he needed time to think, and while he'd spent more time wracking his mind for an answer than was healthy, he still didn't know what to tell her.

"Do you have any friends you've left behind?"

Solas blinked. "What?" His voice sounded uneven and nervous even to his own ears.

Adariel smiled knowingly, teeth bright against her deep tan, and Solas felt his traitorous ears turn pink at the tips. "I asked if there any friends you had to leave before you joined the Inquisition."

"Oh." He managed to contain his sigh of relief, barely. "No, I haven't. I'm afraid I have made very few friends in my life. In fact, before joining the Inquisition, I've had very little social contact with other people at all."

Well, the end of that was more lie than half-truth, but the beginning was honest in its entirety. He'd never had many real friends, even when he wasn't hiding his identity, and he'd long grown accustomed to it.

Adariel frowned, her full lips turning down at the corners. "Don't you get lonely, traveling all over by yourself?"

"I'm hardly alone," Solas replied, smiling gently. Her concern was appreciated but unnecessary. "I've made friends with countless spirits in my travels. I have not lost contact with them, and we still speak in the Fade."

"Yes, but don't you crave interaction with living people outside of your dreams? Affection, companionship . . ." She trailed off, but her meaning was clear enough.

"Ah, well. Truth be told, such a thought had not crossed my mind until recently."

"Recently?" She raised an eyebrow suggestively, a sly grin tipping her mouth up.

Solas couldn't suppress a small laugh, and turned his face down to hide his embarassment. What was it about this one woman that threw him off so much? He had dealt before with nobles and courtiers that had been doubly as intimidating and charismatic as she, but a few choice words from the diminutive and usually awkward Inquisitor was enough to make him feel as if he was on a ship in rolling waters. "Yes, only recently, Inquisitor."

Everything about this was new to him, foreign. He did not flirt, or welcome the advances of others (or at least he hadn't for quite some time). In his position, such a thing was irresponsible and reckless. He couldn't afford any attachments to this world or its people; it would only be a distraction, would only complicate things in the end.

And yet.

Adariel was smiling at him, looking satisfied with something he'd said, and she reached a hand out towards his own. Solas tensed for a moment, but relaxed as she circled her slim, calloused fingers around his wrist, pushing back the frayed cuff of his tunic. Her hand lingered for only a moment, and when she removed it, the frayed twine of the lover's knot adorned the bare flesh.

Solas looked at it blankly for a moment. What was this supposed to imply? While it was only one half of the whole, it still carried the same intent: commitment, companionship, trust, love.

It was a bit loose on his wrist, slipping down as he tilted his hand to look at it. The knot in the center was an intricate twist, framed on either side by a worn wooden bead flecked with streaks of blue paint that had long since faded and mostly rubbed off. Collectors of such artifacts would pay a decent sum for it, but Adariel tended to keep such sentimental items rather than pawn them off for coin.

"In commemoration of your first living friend, then," Adariel said. Her smile had turned gentle and, of all things, hopeful. She was afraid he wouldn't accept it, or rather the implied bond that came with it. She was telling him that, even if he should reject her romantically, she would continue to be his friend.

She was not his first ever living friend; long ago he had made friendships with a few of those he worked closely with. But she was his first friend in this newer, more frightening world, and he supposed that perhaps such a thing could be cause for some kind of commemoration.

He wanted to do something, say something, to return the sentiment. He valued her company and her conversation and every moment they spent together, her smile and her mind. But the words seemed to stick in his throat, and he swallowed them down where they clung, thick and heavy like syrup, in his chest. He settled for something smaller, easier, that he hoped would at least convey some of his feelings.

"Of course," he replied. he lowered his cuff back over his wrist and turned his gaze up to meet Adariel's. "Thank you."

She seemed taken aback by his sincerity, but grinned at him nonetheless. "You're welcome. Now," she directed her attention to the rest of their camp, Cassandra sitting at the base of a rock and Cole picking through another cluster of rubble. "Let's pack up and get going, why don't we? I want to reach the fort by evening."

Cassandra pulled herself up, looking relieved to be done sitting around idle. "Of course, Inquisitor."

Solas quickly pulled the rest of his bindings around his feet before standing up. He extended a hand down to Adariel, who was still sitting cross-legged before him.

She took it, and let him pull her up so that she stood right in front of him, looking up into his face with their hands still clasped between them. Out of the shade, her fair hair and pale eyes seemed almost blinding.

"Thank you, Solas."

Nervous and a bit uncertain, he smiled and replied to her with an unsteady voice. "You're welcome, Adariel."

_____________

He looked down at the knot now as he sat before his fire, hunched against the cold of the mountain wind. It was a bit worse for wear now than it had been, one of the beads chipped and the twine hanging on by a hair in some places. Two years of constant exposure to fighting and weather had nearly done it in, but he'd refused to let it break, mostly because he had loved the brilliant smile she gave him when she spotted it on his wrist.

Shivering, he scooted closer to the warmth of the flame and pulled his pelt tighter around himself. It had been months since he'd left Skyhold and the Inquisition, and it was already summer, but mountains always carried the chill of snow and ice. Longingly, and against his better judgment, his mind turned to thoughts of another mountain range, far away, to a castle nestled in rocky, jagged peaks covered in white.

His people had kept him informed of many of the going-ons within Skyhold, and of what the Inquisitor and company were doing--Dorian had left for Tevinter, Varric for Kirkwall, Cassandra to Orlais to prepare for her coronation--but it was never enough and never about the right person.

The most he knew about Adariel was that she'd been equal parts enraged and disappointed by his sudden, secretive departure, that she and Leliana had dispatched spies all over Thedas to find him, and that she had continued business much as usual: taking trips to close the far-off rifts that had lingered in previously unreachable places, negotiating with nobles, fending off mercenaries and bandits and the remnants of the Venatori. It was useful information, but none of it was what he wanted to know. Was she eating well? Was she getting enough sleep? Was she as cheerful and bright as ever? He had a list of questions, and as the weeks passed, it grew longer and longer. Was she injured, was she happy, was she healthy, was she safe?

Solas certainly had the means to obtain the answers; he doubted any kind of physical distance could stop him from seeking out his vhenan in the Fade. But he would not intrude upon her dreams without permission. It was invasive, and in all honesty, he was afraid of what he might find. Or who.

He knew she was well within her rights to move on from him. He had destroyed any claim he'd had to her affections that awful night in Crestwood, and she deserved to be happy even if it meant finding someone else to be with. But he was a selfish creature, and the idea of such a thing, of her flirting with and kissing and binding herself to another, stung. He did not want to see that in her dreams.

Solas forced his mind away from such thoughts. He had no time for distractions, and every time he let his mind wander to the Frostbacks he felt his resolve waver. He had at least another week of travel ahead of him, and from there he'd have to gather whatever and whomever he could before likely moving farther west .

And yet.

How easy it would be to turn around and head back to the icy peaks of the Frostbacks, to Skyhold, to the familiarity of those stone walls. He wouldn't have to be hiking through mountain or desert or swamp, sleeping in dangerous areas and searching for old places that he wasn't even sure existed anymore. He could make up some story about his disappearance; he was good at deception, and while they may not trust or completely believe him, they would not find any hole to prove him wrong. He'd avoided Leliana's spies well enough that nobody would be able to contradict him. He did not enjoy lying, especially not to the Inquisitor, but he could not just return with no explanation and telling her the truth would cause more problems than it might fix.

Adariel would be angry, of course, but maybe she'd be so relieved that he'd returned that she would forget to yell at him about it. Maybe. It would be unlike her, but maybe. He would ask for forgiveness, but not expect it; it was not deserved. He would prove to her, somehow, that she could trust him again. Time healed all wounds for her kind, and in time, she might accept his apology and . . .

And what? He could not resume their relationship; she grew older as the years went by, but he did not. When she was sixty or seventy, he'd look just the same as ever. Even if they had some time before she caught up with his physical age now, he would not change as he supposedly moved on in his years. It would not take long for someone to notice.

And he could not ignore his People. They would suffer as he lived in whatever comfort or peace he could manage within the Inquisition. No, this could not be delayed. He would keep moving, back turned to Skyhold, and push it from his thoughts. When he was done, when the elves were as they had been before, then he would slip away to grieve what could have been. There was no time for weakness now.

He slipped two fingers under the lover's knot and pulled. It snapped free, the thin strand that had been holding it together broken at last.

**Author's Note:**

> They never took the liberty of explaining to us what exactly a lover's knot is, so I Googled it and found pictures of two different threads knotted together into a bracelet. Hope that's what they were going for, because that's how I wrote it.
> 
> Also, I'm operating under the assumption that Solas is still immortal, or at least aging veeery slowly. I don't think Bioware has really confirmed or denied this, but it makes sense to me.


End file.
